Smells like holy spirit.

January 20, 2016 9:50 AM

How Christianity Infiltrated Seattle Music with a Little Help from Mars Hill Church and the City Council: Thanks to a restrictive zoning ordinance, for a number of years the only consistently open venue for all-ages music in the city of Seattle was owned and operated by the now-defunct Mars Hill Church, headed by now-disgraced pastor Mark Driscoll (previously). Consequently, "Christian imagery continues to permeate post–Mars Hill Seattle music, though its tone and reception has shifted. Songwriters still approach the subject of faith in allegorical, roundabout ways. This is both a reflection of the complex relationship to faith, and a perfectly understandable aversion to guilt by association."
posted by Cash4Lead (11 comments total)

I moved to Seattle in 97, and was an evangelical then in a way I'm not now; The Christian music scene was incredibly energetic and powerful and spilled out all over Seattle in a way that just made the whole rich stew more complex.

The thing about Seattle is it's inherently a suburban culture, perhaps a bit more then than now. But Modern American Christianity had such a strong hold due to that suburban core. The 18-25 year olds then were sort of channeling this indy Christian ennui that was fascinating to someone like me growing up in the South. I think the blooming, flowering, and eventual spoiling of Mars Hill is a proxy for the entire culture. But the music kicked ass.
posted by carlodio at 10:00 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Huh. Now I see why all those bands listed--"Pedro the Lion, Damien Jurado, MxPx, Poor Old Lu, Roadside Monument, 90 Pound Wuss, Raft of Dead Monkeys, and many others"--were so popular among my Evangelical but decent-music-liking college friends. No idea about the Mars Hill connection.

Generally a good write-up, but as a sidenote (since it's sort of not the point of the article) I don't know that labeling Driscoll a "fraud" or "disgrace" is accurate. "Controversial" or "abrasive" sure, but it's not like he was putting AC in his dogs' kennel at his mansion or caught at a truckstop or a crackhouse.
posted by resurrexit at 11:09 AM on January 20, 2016

As someone who grew up in the deepest most evangelical corners of the South, the Pacific Northwestern evangelical scene was always deeply weird to me. There was a period in my twenties when I appreciated PTL, though now I find it a little difficult to listen to.

Criticism As Inspiration is still a pretty great song though.
posted by echocollate at 11:11 AM on January 20, 2016

~resurrexit: The article explains Driscoll's misdeeds, which included plagiarism and misuse of church funds over and above his (to put it mildly) abrasiveness. /end_derail
posted by Cash4Lead at 11:17 AM on January 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

MHC always struck me as creepily cult-like, as per this previous post on the blue, and your various Jesus-freakesque seventies cults (such as The Process) who used concerts to recruit would have no doubt approved.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:22 PM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

"it's a revenue-generator, a mirror held up to your own behavior"
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 1:12 PM on January 20, 2016

but it's not like he was putting AC in his dogs' kennel at his mansion or caught at a truckstop or a crackhouse.

there's a . . . real range between abrasive and that.
posted by listen, lady at 2:26 PM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Driscoll screamed and ranted at targets far beyond his congregation, including physically threatening his victims (which he claimed was rhetorical) and threatening their organizations with hints of denunciation, financial audits, and legal investigations. According to him, christians not attending his church, preachers of color, folks of any other or no religious affiliations and LGBTQ folks were going to hell and he was going to help. Starting with being the room with him.

He was poisonous, he violently coerced the leaders of his church into poisonous behavior, and the music scene that his church hosted was tainted as well. The small-time success christian bands they encouraged were still painfully christian in content to this Jew. I'm sorry for the musicians who struggled to succeed, judged not entirely on their artistic merits.

Good riddance. But here we go again; now gentrification is leading Seattle venue closures, even when the city council realizes performance space is, in fact, desirable.
posted by Dreidl at 6:01 PM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

If it's good then it's just called music. If it's bad please start a band. Just start a band is what I'm saying.
posted by basicchannel at 6:17 PM on January 20, 2016

According to him, christians not attending his church, preachers of color, folks of any other or no religious affiliations and LGBTQ folks were going to hell and he was going to help.

What? I'm genuinely curious to see your sources for these statements.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 3:10 AM on January 21, 2016

That Driscoll is a hateful, bullying, misogynist is not exactly news; it's been widely documented all over the web.
posted by uberchet at 12:19 PM on January 28, 2016